1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to printing systems and more particularly to high-speed printing systems that use a sense mark on a substrate to control the printing of images or data on the substrate.
2. Description of the Background of the Invention
High-speed printing systems typically print on a paper web by moving the paper web along a paper path using rollers or drums past printheads. A controller controls the printheads to print images on the paper web as the paper web moves under and/or over the printheads. In printing systems that include multiple imaging units, each imaging unit may include a plurality of printheads and each imaging unit may print a different color on the paper web. A first imaging unit prints a first color used for an image and a subsequent imaging unit prints a second color overlaid on the same image and so on with additional imaging units and colors. In order to align the printed images, it is important to track the position of the printed images with respect to the printheads included in each imaging unit.
In high-speed printing systems, the speed at which the paper web is moving along the paper path can be on the order of hundreds of feet/meters per second. In addition, the paper web dimensions may change due to moisture and other forces exerted on the paper web. These and other factors make it difficult to accurately track the position of the paper web and provide accurate control of the printheads.
Prior print systems and methods have included the printing of a sense mark on the substrate that indicates a top of the page. A sensor detects the sense mark and a controller tracks the position of the sense mark with respect to the printheads on each imaging unit. The controller instructs the printheads to print on the paper web in accordance with the detection of the sense mark. Prior print systems use a first printhead on a first imaging unit to print the sense mark on the paper web. Consequently, the sense mark is located along a side margin of the paper web, where subsequent images are not printed. This arrangement requires a larger paper web width to produce a printed image of a particular size because of the unused margin where the sense mark is printed. Further, these prior systems have not adequately addressed the issue of accurately detecting the sense mark and tracking the paper web.
Other prior art systems and methods track a lateral registration mark or a side edge of a substrate such as a paper web to detect problems such as shrinkage, expansion, drift, and/or skew of the paper web in a multi-color printing process. Such prior systems and methods use complex registration marks and algorithms to correct for such problems as shrinkage and expansion and do not adequately prevent or minimize such problems before they occur.